this is what it feels like
by SaneTwin1-2
Summary: <html><head></head>And sometimes she's glad her heart is half gone, that it's allowed her to soften her approach a little, because sometimes there are things she must treat with delicacy – something her brash, full heart would not always understand. She can't cradle her oldest child, she can't always say the important things, but she can smile, and she can understand.</html>


"Still no service." Mary Margret sighs and sets her phone back down on the counter, feeling absolutely useless. Her son is resting on her shoulder, his cheek wrinkled against her neck, and she just wishes she could do the same with Emma.

She wishes she could pull Emma into her arms and rub her back until she is warm again, she wishes Emma would ask for it, she wishes could be confident enough to do it on her own. But instead, she only musters up an old, tired smile. To her daughter of thirty.

On the chair, her daughter manages a tired smile of her own, "I'm sure it'll be up in the morning."

"I'm sure, but I don't really want to wait till the morning." She watches her daughter shiver, her hands rubbing together to gather any sort of warmth to her skin.

"Who do you want to reach, anyway?" Emma shivers again and moves to blow warm air into her hands, her fingers still pale and blue.

Mary Margret bites the inside of her cheek and leans her cheek against Neal. "Oh, nobody in particular." It's a lie and she's sure if Emma wasn't freezing, she might have gotten a lecture or an eye roll. But she _is_ freezing, like the potted rose plant Mary Margret forgot to cover a few nights ago, now collapsed in on itself with heavy frost and shriveled dead leaves.

"Well." Emma closes her eyes, smiling. "I'm sure nobody in particular can wait." Her laugh sounds as breathless and jagged as an infant's cough.

"Honey." Mary Margret moves to sit on the seat, squeezing Emma's ankle with her hand. "Don't fall asleep, alright?"

Emma smiles, an involuntary little tic of a smile, and she can see that she is happy to be here, to be freezing and shivering in a pile of useless thin blankets with a useless mother who can't even find a pair of socks that aren't worn down with holes, much less anything warm.

But Emma is happy, she is happy because her mother is here to squeeze her ankle; to express a calm and simple worry over her daughter's health. Only that.

Mary Margret sighs, squeezing Emma's ankle again. Sometimes it's almost impossible not to feel like a failure, because, while she knows love is never simple, a _mother's_ love should always be known. It does not come as a surprise. It does not feel like a gift.

"I'm going to make you tea." Mary Margret stands quickly and moves as quickly as she can to the kitchen without rousing her sleeping child (or worrying the one still shivering in the chair). The hiss of gas is comforting, and Mary Margret sets the flame, going through the process of finding her kettle, filling it with water and settling it over the flames.

It's a little disappointing. All she has to give is a cup of tea to warm her daughter. She doesn't have a fireplace. She doesn't have magic. She doesn't even have her daughter's favorite brand of tea, or the apple cinnamon flavoring she likes, or even a dollop of honey to go with it.

Neal gurgles and rouses just enough to press his cheek against her chest. She sighs and lays her cheek against his head for comfort. His smell and cherry skin lulls her.

If only her phone worked. Regina could have fixed everything by now. Oh, she would put up a fuss, of course. She'd laugh and hang up, and then come only a few minutes later with everything in hand, tea already made, a fire set in place blankets as thick as wolf fur.

"Hey, uh…Mom?" Emma's voice wavers, and Mary Margret jolts in surprise, turning to look at her. Emma musters up an embarrassed smile, because she's shivering again, a little harder than before, and despite all the blankets (thin as they may be) her hands have curled into half-fists, her knuckles red from the cold. "Do you think I could get another blanket?"

"We don't have anymore." Mary Margret says, and struggles with her desire to rush to her daughter's side, to pull her on her lap and bring some warmth to this child she never gotten to raise.

She thinks she might have been able to do it at another time, before her curse, when her ribcage was full with her heart, and though it had not become any less capable of love in just a half, it is now so often prone to doubt and cowardice.

"That's alright." Emma's teeth clatter and she holds her arms a little closer, needing warmth. "I think we should get a fireplace. Like, in the future. Not right now. Though if you could, that would also be great, because a fire sounds pretty good."

"I could probably get a bird to fetch you a…" The thought dies, and Mary Margret blinks in surprise. "Oh. Actually, I have another idea." Because honestly, she can't believe she hadn't thought about it before. Mary Margret jots down a quick message, signs it as elegantly as she can, and hopes Regina actually opens her window to get it.

Opening a window, she leans out, whistling; she can feel her daughter's curious eyes behind her, and she's thankful a bird actually comes – it would have been terribly embarrassing to be out staged by the Evil Queen in the call over animals (she's seen that damn Disney version of herself, she knows what expectations there are to uphold.)

"Um, so where you sending the blue bird…" Emma asks as she watches a little incredulously as the bird clicks the message with its beak.

"It's a pardolate, actually." Maybe not as impressive as a crow, but her daughter still looks fascinated by the thought that her mother can call a bird to her command. With a breath, she shelters that warm fascination within her ribcage, warming her a little, (she's not as surprised by the need to be assured of love, not this time). "And I'm giving a message to Regina."

"Oh?" Emma instantly looks nervous, running her cold, trembling fingers through her hair. And Mary Margret sighs, because why does she have to bother with Hook at this point? At a different time she might have been able to call her daughter out on it. "So. Um, why?"

"I told her to come here as quickly as she could."

"What?" Emma blinks, startled, and with her skin so pale, her eyes look more gray than they ever have. Like a large still lake. "Why would you call her? She, uh, kind of hates me right now."

And sometimes she's glad her heart is half gone, that it's allowed her to soften her approach a little, because sometimes there are things she must treat with delicacy – something her brash, full heart would not always understand. She can't cradle her oldest child, she can't always say the important things, but she can smile, and she can understand.

"Oh, Emma." She lets out with a breath, smiling. "She doesn't hate you."

It's the easiest thing to say, and the easiest thing to truly believe.

But Emma just shrugs and looks away. Her hand pulls through her wet hair again, struggling with the tangled knots in there. "Well. She definitely doesn't like me right now. I don't think she's just going to come over and –"

A purple mist swirls into the room and Regina quickly stalks out, looking so frantic that Mary Margret actually feels guilty for her part in it. (she admits the message might have been a little misleading).

Emma's mouth remains gaping open and Mary Margret presses her cheek against Neal's soft downy hair, hiding her smile. Regina blinks, looking equally shocked, because Emma is wrapped in blankets and definitely not dying because maybe, just maybe Mary Margret had been a little misleading on the _urgency_ of her letter.

Regina's confusion instantly turns to fury as she turns to Mary Margret. "What the hell is wrong with you, your daughter is most definitely not _dying_."

"I didn't say _dying_." She waves Regina away with a hand and secretly loves the way Regina's jaw clenches and the vein in her forehead bulges, because there are some old fears that can give away to love now – she hopes they all can at some point, that all her fears may come to rest. "I just said your help was needed _urgently_."

Regina's eyes dart back on Emma, more suspicious now, as though Emma had been trying to hide her critical state of health just to embarrass her. Emma stiffens under the inspection and quickly looks up to ceiling, as if she could circumvent all consequences of this decision by simply looking away.

But Regina sees all that Mary Margret had seen – she has the eyes of a mother, after all. She sees the dry, cracked lips, faintly blue and dry with cold skin, her hands stiff and curled into fists, her hair lank and wet on her shoulders, her feet bare and cold and pale.

Emma looks _cold,_ and even if the only result was discomfort, she thinks Regina would soften just as she is now.

"Fine." Regina sighs, flippantly brushing her hair out of her face, and when her eyes cut back to Mary Margret, she's not surprised to see a true anger burning in there, again. "But only because you're so _incredibly_ insufficient. Honestly, dear, not _even_ socks?"

And Mary Margret can't even protest, (because she agrees) because Regina is already snapping her fingers and pulling warm woolly socks out of thin air.

Emma smiles awkwardly and leans forward, allowing Regina to wrap a warm russet blanket around her shoulders; she tries to hide the awe on her face, one that quickly turns to embarrassment when Regina starts to work the warmth back into Emma's cold, cramping feet, slipping the wool socks on first and then rubbing with hard, knowing hands. And even in embarrassment, Emma looks up from the cover of her hair to watch Regina with the sort of tenderness that is a secret to them both – one Mary Margret hopes will be revealed to them later, in the only other way a fairytale story can come to a close.

The water comes to a boil at that point, and Mary Margret is sort of relieved to have a reason to leave. This moment is private; it's meant for them, for Emma, for Regina, for them both.

Because even in anger Regina doesn't hesitate to nudge Emma up in the chair and slip behind her, her arms wrapping around Emma in a way that probably feels like a fireplace, like holding a cup of warm tea, like wearing warm sweaters and being hugged by a mother.

Mary Margret can watch from the safety of the kitchen as her daughter stops shivering, until she sighs, warm, her cheeks flushed again with color, until she's seeking for more, pressing into the crook of Regina's neck and falling into a type of slumber that does not require sleep; it has more to do with a peace, with being warm, with finally being found.

She can't explain to her daughter what a happy ending feels like, she's not entirely sure herself. But when Regina moves to brush some hair away from Emma's forehead, tucking it behind her ear, she looks up just in time to catch Mary Margret's eye, and it seems for a moment that they might understand it, or at least get the chance to - to know _exactly_ what a happy ending feels like. It fills her with hope, and if Regina sees it, she doesn't take note - she just turns back to Emma, her mouth pulled up into tenderness.


End file.
